Four hunters on a 4x4 wannabe hatchback, taking advantage of a long weekend -Santa Rosa de Lima’s courtesy- fled Lima the morning of August 27, with the aim of hunting confluence S10W77 located at Huánuco.

In the afternoon, after a 10-hour journey riding on perfect pavement, we arrived to Huallanca, a beautiful town developed thanks to the economic boost produced by the mining activity on the region. From there, we headed to Cordillera Chaupijanca up to Cochahuayi lagoon, where we camped on the lands of Lelis, a nice villager that incarnated all the kindness attributed to the Peruvians on the highlands.

The hunt

The morning after, August 28, we went after the confluence. The trail had a comfortable slop. A simple trek and three little cols let us arrive only 400 meters from the desired point, without wasting too much energy and ascending 500 meters -from 3989 meters to 4489 meters.

From that point we started the attack. It consisted on ascending through the irregular moraines that leave the glaciers when they recede, leaving bare rock.

After deciding the best approach to enter the moraine, the search for less complex routes to reach the confluence became the main objective. Rock walls were insurmountable obstacles to climb, so we had to move away from the parallel that we reached at 4520 meters. As we were trying to approach the meridian and the route was up the rock wall, we were forced to follow not the direction we wanted or needed, but the direction the topography let us.

Finally, we climbed by an exposed gutter and could reach the limit distance to achieve the objective. We sat on a rock terrace to enjoy success: we arrived at a distance of 76.9 meters with an accuracy of 14 meters, so the total calculated distance was 90.9 meters.

The difficulty of the ascent can be observed in the altimeter photo by the percentage of slope.

One recommendation we cannot ignore for future hunting is to bring climbing gear, because, as the photo map shows, the confluence is located precisely at the most vertical slope of the mountain.

This confluence showed once again to Confluencias Peruanas’ hunters that it is mostly the friendship and the love for exploration that allow us to reach more remote areas of the Peruvian territory, opening and showing new routes and achieving challenges so complex and interesting as this one, located at an spectacular corner of Huánuco.